South Boston Independent Taxi Cab , Southie , 617-269-4444,02127

A Manhattan Mystery..

In last months column I detailed concerns that Verifone , who has the most taxis under contract within the city of Boston and its suburbs, may have taken controlling ownership of Top Cab/City cab and now had gained control of Clear Chanel`s taxi top light business.

Within a week of the story being published the owner of the taxi I rent got a call from “Kim from Verifone” asking to speak to me to “clear up some issues” I was immediately bewildered as to why a company with access to my social security number, bank account, home phone number, and more then likely my underwear size would be contacting me via my cab owner? Perhaps to send more then one kind of message? I immediately traced the phone number she had left to a Long Island city company called “All Taxi management inc. ” . I then called the Top Cab dispatch office to ask if they had any idea what the call had been about. The operator who fielded my call said “that’s one of your Bosses from New York leave your number here and we will pass on the message”. I then looked up the corporation of my until now unkown “New York Boss” and found very little info about it. The New York state corporate database has the CEO listed as a Neil Greenbaum with one address the same as the phone number attached to my “New York Boss”.

Now my curiosity was peeked so I dared to call my “New York boss” and got a voice mail system that identified itself as Verifone transportation systems. I quickly punched in my new boss’s extension and left a voice mail inviting her to call me back and discuss any concerns she may have on a recorded line or email them to me directly. As of this writing my new boss has yet to call. If my new boss is reading this and would like to speak to me on the record to address any concerns she may have I am of course available and you will find my phone number and email at the bottom of this column.

However I implore you boss that before calling I would like you to take a deep breath and come to the realization that no matter what you or your associates purchase here in the Commonwealth I ,nor any other Boston Cabbie, WORK FOR YOU! As a matter of fact I only answer to the following

1) God
2) My Wonderful wife
3) Mark Cohen and the Boston police department.

If you you do call/write please have answers to the following questions prepared

1) What is All Taxi Management and what exactly is its relationship to Verifone transportation systems?

2) What % of Top Cab city Cab dispatch is owned by All Taxi or Verifone transportation systems? Mind filling us in on the purchase price?

3) I and several drivers in the Top Cab/City Cab system are willing to provide whoever is running the place with constructive advice on how your woefully inadequate dispatch system could be improved to better suit our needs and the needs of the citizens of the city of Boston. Which “Boss” do we pass these suggestions to? How will they be handled?

4) I have been told by several sources that Top/City radio room operators are now instructed to take calls anywhere in the Commonwealth regardless of the traveling distance? Is this true?

5) Recently I.T.O.A. dispatch informed it`s membership that they must have their Verifone machines removed from their cabs by March 1 if they wish to continue being members of the I.T.O.A. Several cab operators in this situation have reported to me that they were repeatedly told by representatives of Verifone T.S. that there would be no problems with having these machines installed. Sources at the ITOA have told me that there was a time they had negotiated with Verifone TS and after reaching a deal with another provider Verifone installed machines in ITOA cabs knowing full well they might not interface with ITOA’s planned deployment of Mobile knowledge dispatch. Is it true the machines will not interface and given the obvious issue of interfacing the two systems will you release these people from their contracts and remove these machines free of charge and in a timely manner?

6) Several current members of Top/City had no idea upon joining these associations that ,if this ownership relationship exists,they would be involving themselves with a New York city based radio room management team. Now that this information,if true, has come into daylight will these members be allowed to leave Top/City/Verifone contracts free of charge and enter into agreements with other locally owned and operated associations?

7) If the ownership relationship between Top/City/Verifone/All Taxi management exists was this conglomeration approved by the Boston Police Hackney Carriage unit and where can we see documentation of that ?

Several taxi operators with Verifone equipment installed have informed me that they have yet to be paid for the advertising that is running on these credit card machines. Have you paid anyone? What % of the ad revenue does the taxi operator get? More then a few drivers find these ads to be bothersome is there an option to shut them down when particular drivers log in? Given these ads,as well as the top light ads, are powered by gas purchased by taxi drivers and not taxi operators and as I said several drivers find these ads to be a nuisance would it not be more fair ,now that it is easily tracked, to provide a % of the ad revenue directly to the driver who PAYS to power these ads?

I look forward to any and all responses from Verifone transportation systems, All taxi management, Top Cab,City Cab, Kim .Duane, Amos or whoever it is that is actually running things these days! However, I have the feeling they won’t spend the money on the long distance call from Long Island city to answer such tough questions from a lowly cabbie.

Mike@southiecab.com Recorded line:617-934-5651

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